Hermit crabs
Hermit crabs are quite intresting pets to own, but they take quite a lot of devotion to remember to feed them every day (More like night.) and to fill up their fresh and salt water dishes. Hermit crabs are fun to watch and to handle, often if treated right they can seem to almost form a bond of sorts with their owner, crawling (Or attempting to.) up their owners arms, shirt, furniture, or whatever they can, Hermit crabs are also mysterious in the sense that some will be quite content with not coming out to walk around or to at least see what all is going on. I advise any parents who are thinking of getting their young child a hermit crab as a pet to do EXTENSIVE ''research before buying your child one. Also make sure your child isn't one who easily gets bored, as this will become a problem and you will end up being the one giving full care to the hermit crabs-assuming you're the childs' parent-. Also make sure that your child is ready to care for such delicate creatures, though the 'free hermit crab' stand on the boardwalk gave you a wire cage to keep your new friend in, that is-and I cannot stress this enough- that is ''NOT A GOOD SETUP. HOW TO GIVE GENERAL CARE TO HERMIT CRABS IS IMPORTANT. Hermit crabs need at least a ten gallon aquarium (Not filled with water if they are land hermit crabs.). The substrate I suggest you use is not gravel or sand, but Eco Earth. Usually used for reptiles of amphibious creatures, it works great for hermit crabs, as it's simply coconut husk. Do not use dirt from your back yard or front yard, side yard or any other yard, as it may contain chemicals that can be harmful to hermit crabs. Make sure they have a supply (Tarrarium dishes are fine, that's what I use.) of fresh AND salt water, not table salt in the salt water, as it contains Iodine, a harmful chemical to hermit crabs. Many crabbers do not agree about the 'specially formulated' hermit crab pellet or powder foods being harmful to them, but I personally do not believe it is good for them, SURE it may have the stuff they need, but if you look in the ingredients it may contain something known as Iron oxide, L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate, or Ethoxyquin, I am doing research on this but as I have heard from other crabbers (Though I'm not sure if I can trust them.) that these substances were BANNED in dog and cat foods and are quite harmful to hermit crabs. Well, now that you've thrown out your 'hermit crab meal', you're probably wondering what they eat. They can eat things such as yellow, green, or even red bell peppers, carrots, celery, parsley, romaine lattuce, egg white and egg yolk, and other things such as that, but they require a supply of calcium in the form of things like egg shells or cuttlebone (Though I don't really recommend cuttlebone, as it might just have some chemicals in it that are safe for birds but not safe for hermit crabs.).